The Dead as Resources: The Utilization of Death and Burial for the Construction of Social Identity and Legitimacy in Viking Age Scandinavia
The Dead as Resources: The Utilization of Death and Burial for the Construction of Social Identity and Legitimacy in Viking Age Scandinavia

Summary/Abstract: Beside the aspect of the technical removal of a dead body, a burial is mainly a public ritual within the local community which fulfils several religious, cultic but also social and political functions. As other public feasts like weddings, the highly dynamic burial ceremony allows a negotiation or manipulation of the social reality through grave goods, the outer form of the grave or the position of the dead body itself. By this, death and burial can serve as an immaterial resources for the bereaved to reconstruct, legitimize or secure their social position or political claim, which will be analyzed within the research project “SFB 1070 Resource ąCultures B06 – Humans and Resources in Viking Age”.

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